Grow

August 15, 2007

Well, almost too hot to bake. This month at A Year in Bread we are focusing on quick breads, with Kevin's scrumptious Cheese Bread starting us out. My post is going up tomorrow, but there is a subtle hint here somewhere about the recipe. If I could just remember where I put it.

May 25, 2007

Lovage (Levisticum officinale)
is one of my favorite herbs you have never heard of. The herb's lack of
public recognition always seems odd to me. It's a versatile herb with a
palate-friendly flavor a lot like celery, yet more complex and
nuanced. Fresh, young leaves are mellow enough to use whole in a salad,
but it also stands up to long cooking in soups and stews.

The obvious presenting flavor of lovage is celery, but the flavor is more complex than that. Along with the concentrated celery is a large dose of the bright green flavor of parsley and a hint of something sweetly earthy. I use it as a celery substitute whenever it is available and find it provides some ineffable extra taste that I really like.

The hollow stem, a section of
which can be up to a foot or more in length and an inch in diameter,
makes an excellent straw for drinks, such as a Bloody Mary, where a
celery flavor is desired. Lovage stems can be candied, like angelica,
as an unusual sweet treat.

Excuse
me a moment of excitement, but I just discovered a new trick for lovage
stems: sliced lengthwise and put in ice water, they curl like the
ridged curling ribbon they make for wrapping presents! This offers all
sorts of possibilities from the sublime (make a brush for putting
melted butter on corn on the cob) to the ridiculous (edible icons of
the Flying Spaghetti Monster). Curlicue garnishes. Hair for Halloween
monsters. This could be fun.

Lovage is also a beautiful addition to your herb garden. Unfurling from
asparagus tip-like bundles in early spring, lovage quickly becomes a
hip-high bush of soft green foliage. Midsummer sees flower spikes
shooting to eye level before opening golden umbels that slowly mature into marvelously tasty seeds, something the birds know as well as I. Come fall, the birds and I vie for themature seeds, with my winnings finding their way into stews and breads over the winter.

Gardeners
appreciate lovage because it is easy to grow, tolerating most soil
condition and even a bit less water and sun than large, leafy herbs.
(It is easy to tell when lovage is thirsty; mine, which is in direct
sunlight, droops noticeably on hot days. Fortunately, it revives just
as quickly with a bit of water.)

A perennial that, like tarragon,
requires a period of cold dormancy, lovage is often grown as an annual
in warm climates. If you have to do this, you can save your own seeds,
stored in an airtight jar in the refrigerator, over the winter for
spring planting.

You can often find plants at a local nursery, although probably not at
a 'big-box' store, and seeds are available from a number of sources,
including Territorial Seeds and Seeds of Change.
Better yet, keep an eye out for a plant in the garden of a friend or
neighbor; If you see one, don't be afraid to ask for a start for your
garden. A single plant is enough to supply all but the most avid of
lovage fan - and two will do for even them - and since lovage
self-seeds, there are often small "volunteers" growing around the base
of established plants. Spring (now as I write this) is the perfect time
to divide lovage clumps, preferably on a cool, cloudy day.

May 22, 2007

"Is this cookie lavender?" Sarah looked up from her herb snipping with a big grin. "I hope it's cookie lavender!"

Most people probably associate lavender with soap or maybe perfume, but not cookies! Who has ever heard of lavender cookies?

Well,
let's start with the obvious: yes, they smell like lavender! (and
butter, if that helps) The scent is either intoxicating or...well,
off-putting might be an appropriate term. I have taken these to several
parties and I love the reactions.

Some
people smell them and immediately get the lavender scent. I can tell
because the response is usually a skrinched nose accompanied by a
moment while a polite way of ask if they contain...umm, err, soap is sought. (Seriously, I can see the wheels whir. The thought goes: "These smell like soap! OMG! I can't say that? But she knows how to cook! How could she...but she must have tasted one...but...SOAP!" So far, I haven't laughed, but it is getting harder.)

Others simply can't identify the scent.

Every
once in a while, a sniff is met with an arched eyebrow, and an
inquisitive glance. Those people get a special little note in my
internal list of people I can suck into tasting weird creations. Err, I
mean recipe testers!

One
bite, however, and the cookies have gained a fan. Never fails. These
tender little cookies are melt-in-your-mouth buttery with a delicately
floral taste. Nary a hint of soap.

There are several types of
lavender commonly available, but for culinary uses, English Lavender is
what most cooks choose. Most other lavenders are too strong, being
either more camphorous than sweet or simply overwhelmingly flowery.

Interestingly
enough, English lavender is actually not a scientific designation of
lavender. This common name refers to a number of lavender species with
the most common being Lavandula angustifoliaofficinalis, which is most common and prized for its sweet scent and flavor along with superb oil quality. The Lavandula angustifolia species "Hidcote," "Munstead," and "Melissa," along with Lavandula intermedia "Provence" are amongst the favorites for cooking.

Although
only a handful of lavenders are suitable for culinary uses, there are a
number of others that definitely deserve a spot in your garden. Some of
my favorites are:

Spanish lavender (Lavandula stoechas) has lovely bracts, often
called "rabbit's ears" or "wings," making it one of the showiest garden
lavenders. I have half a dozen different Spanish Lavender species,
including several shades of purple and one or two pinks, but this yellow lavender (said to smell of lavender and rosemary) is going on my endlessListOfThingsIWant right now!

French lavender (Lavandula dentata) has finely-toothed leaf edges and small, pale purple flowers. It is another attractive, and less common, plant for the garden.

Lavandin (Lavandula intermedia) is a hybrid cross between L. angustifolia and Lavandula stoechas with particularly long flower stalks. Lavandin is commonly used for perfume oil and is also common in gardens.

Woolly lavender (Lavandulalanata) has silver leaves and dark purple flowers, making it a beautiful landscaping plant.

Sweet Lavender (Lavandula heterophylla) is an oddly named plant as it is far too camphorous to use in cooking. It is one of the tallest lavenders, however, with spikes of up to 4 feet.

Cookie Lavender (Lavandula cookieus),
which isn't a species, but should be, is usually Munstead, but
occasionally Melissa, or even Alba, grown in my front garden bed. Soon in Sarah's garden too.

April 17, 2007

Once
upon a time, the kitchenMage had the herb garden of her dreams.
Wisteria draped the entrance arbor, opening onto a herringbone path
interplanted with thyme and moss and edged with lavender and a plethora
of mints. Herbs, both common and rare, filled this garden and new finds
were constantly finding their way there. Rare thymes and more mints
than she could name filled the beds, and the air, with intoxicating
scents. A few choice trees also lived there: the prized sweet bay, a
pink dogwood bent near horizontal from its attempts to survive its old
home, and the maples (no two the same) that defined the border.

Oh, I'm sorry! I was daydreaming there for a minute.

While I would love to have that herb garden again (and it is worth a look,
although I apologize for the old, not so great photos) the sad fact is
that I don't. Worse, I won't have anything like it for a few more years
to come. A few summers from now, I expect to once again walk through a
garden like that, although not too much like that.

I
have a new house and a new "yard" - if one can call close to nine acres
a yard - but after two years, the new garden remains unplanted. When we
arrived, the little beds around the house's foundation looked like
builders had done the planting: some unkempt low junipers and dozens of
pansies, in a stunning array of magenta and white-one shade of each.
Boring! (When the foxglove and daisies that had been hidden in winter,
when we bought the place, first emerged, it seemed fitting somehow that
they were also white and purple.)

Frankly,
the only thing to recommend the gardened areas was the blueberry patch.
The untended space, mostly Douglas firs (originally planted for timber
harvest) with fern-laden undergrowth edged up against wild fog forest,
has more to recommend it, including the wildlife. At least most of the
time.

Call me naïve, but I really hadn't counted on the sheer volume
of critters in the yard. In addition to the deer and small creatures
common to the cusp of field and wood, there's an elk herd - numbering
from a dozen to many times that, depending on how close we are to
hunting season - wanders through on their way from on valley to the
next. I don't even want to think about what the neighbor's escaped cows
did to the poor magnolia!

There was a bit of momentary panic at the thought of doing without any herb garden while I wait for fencing to protect my treasures from marauding beasts before I put them in harm's way. Reallygood fencing. Luckily, it was winter and I really couldn't do much beyond sulk at the idea of life sans garden. That and watch the critters.

Over
the first couple of months, I noticed that nary a critter has ventured
close enough to the house to see, let alone nibble, the beds of
evergreen blobs and rampant pansies. Go figure.

One day it dawned on me. They never came close to the house.

Those
beds, filled with plants I found neither useful nor, truth be told,
attractive were rapidly emptied and replaced with an herb garden that,
while not quite so poetic as the old one, is wonderfully functional and
quite lovely in its own way.

This small scale gardening has also
been a learning experience. The prominent location and shallow beds
call for plants that are beautiful as well as aromatic and tasty so I
have selected colorful varieties of some favored herbs: Tri-color and golden sage,
variegated mint and thyme, and golden oregano, along with lots of
edible flowers brighten front edges, while a swath of many mints
thrives in the back, dry stripe under the roof overhang.
My favorite
rosemary has a home and creeping thyme softens the hard line between
concrete and garden Best of all, there are chive clumps everywhere!
And I must admit I love being able to step outside in bare feet to
harvest herbs, something that was more difficult in the large garden.

Establishing
some plants has been a struggle. The first winter killed all the
expensive new tarragon plants and lastwinter's freeze/flood cycle took
out half of the rosemary yearlings. Those plants sometimes died at the
old place too, but with room to plant a hundred rosemary cuttings,
rather than a tenth that, half of them dying isn't quite so sad.

After
two years though, almost everything I need for cooking is here. There
isn't a lot of some things, the thyme collection is short a few things
(lavender and caraway evade me) and I can't find any lime mint. But
there is enough to cook with daily and share with friends. And it is
lovely, not looking at all like it was planted as a functional garden.
More than one person has commented that it looks like a park.

This
garden has also led to my conviction that any small space - even yours
- can be transformed into a gorgeous herb garden that will rock your
culinary world. Thoughtful plant selection and placement can result in
a garden that will improve both your cooking and your yard.

While
I know this isn't my old herb garden, it will do for now. In fact, even
after the large garden goes in, the little one stays. I just need a
cat-sized wisteria arbor.

September 23, 2006

Weekend Herb Blogging is Kalyn's
weekly venture into the land of herbs and always offers a collection of
international food writers weighing in with delightful ideas for using
the goodness that is fresh herbs.

The onset of fall in evenTinierTown brings morning fog, cooling afternoon breezes, and the annual wine tasting and auction, an event that always brings out a crowd to sample food and drink before spending a few dollars on a variety of donated goods. Depending on the amount of wine involved, the spending may climb to more than a few dollars...or so goes the devious plan.

June 24, 2006

Weekend Herb Blogging is Kalyn's weekly venture into the land of herbs and always offers a collection of international food writers weighing in with delightful ideas for using the goodness that is fresh herbs. This week's edition is being guest-hosted by Virginie at Absolutely Green who has a French-English blog with some yummy looking pictures of food and France both.

Of all the herbs in my garden, I brought three plants with me when I moved, leaving the rest to overwinter in a friend's yard while we got settled. A Tuscan Blue rosemary, the largest of the spanish lavender, and the sweet bay tree rode with me and the cats in the pickup truck. Had I been forced to a decision, the rosemary and lavender could have spent the winter with the rest, but the bay had to be with me.

Pretty strong feelings for an herb whose dried leaves are actually not too bad, widely available and usually inexpensive. For many cooks, bay is a necessary part of the melange of herbs used in
things like soups, stews, pot roasts, and, of course, marinara sauce.
When used this way, bay provides a difficult to describe flavor that
adds a sort of depth and complexity to the dish without leaving a
discernable flavor of its own. To paraphrase former Supreme Court Justice Stewart, I may not be able to define it, but I know it when I don't taste it.

October 23, 2005

Kalyn, of Kalyn's Kitchen, has started an irresistible—well, at least to me—meme: Weekend Herb Blogging. Lacking in cats and dogs, but not garden, Kalyn dreamt up WHB as another option for food bloggers at play. Play? In an herb garden? I am so there!

For my first foray, I am showcasing a bit of an aberration: a pink borage flower. As you can see from the picture, the densely-clustered flowers are a lovely periwinkle blue. When I went out the other day to snag a few pictures of the herb garden in late fall, I discovered one pink flower amongst the sea of icy blue. I've been growing borage for at least a decade now and it's the first pink flower I've seen so I was pretty jazzed. (What's that you say? I should get a life? laughs)

September 05, 2005

At the beginning of summer, in an optimistic burst of anticipated frentic energy, I bought a lot of herb starts. And I do mean a lot of herb starts. Most of them got in the ground and are thriving (I'll have to get pictures soon) but then there's the stevia. I bought a couple, stuck them in pots thinking that would make it easy to bring them inside in fall--does that even work?--and stuck the pots in a corner by the blueberries where they'd get water while I figured out what to do with them.

July 05, 2005

Pardon just a moment of blatant self-promotion. My first article, The Rosemary Thief is up at Saucy magazine. In it I get to talk about cooking with fresh herbs, a particular passion of mine, so I am a happy kitchenmage.And since I need a picture, and I have this one I've been wanting to use, have a slice of my birthday cake. Details later, but suffice it to say it was very, very chocolatey (and the mintis from my garden so there's the tie-in to herbs for those of you keeping score... grin)

May 16, 2005

To answer an earlier question, "Yes, it's here!" But I had somehow missed the memory card I needed so it sat for several days...sad...dejected...without purpose... The camera didn't have much to do either. :-(

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